Hive Dive
by sealgaire
Summary: A teenage night out in the forty-first millenium. Nothing can possibly go wrong... Rated M because things
1. Chapter 1

All things die, and planets are no exception.

It wasn't war or disease that killed Gavyan Secundus; it was economics. The outer edge of the segmentum had expanded and shifts in the warp meant ships no longer needed to pass through her system to reach the border areas; bringing food and supplies. Most of the inhabitants had been spirited away to a series of newly founded Agri-Worlds. Many more had been drafted into the Gavyanian I, II and III regiments of the Guard.

Secundus had, in its heyday, been home to almost forty-five billion people. By most standards, its life had been pretty good; it was the second planet from its parent star, and the climate was rather balmy in most latitudes practically all year round. Nowadays, no one remembers when humans first set foot on its surface, or what it had even looked like. Perhaps, in that Dark Age of the tech-heathens it had oceans and mountains, or maybe it was a lifeless rock to be terraformed and tailored to human habitation.

In any case, recorded history showed that at least since 917.M.30, When the Great Crusade arrived on its doorstep, Gavyan Secundus was a entirely covered by city. A hive.

Now, the spent carcass of the city was being slowly dismantled. Every part would be appropriated to another part of the Imperial food chain. Fusion reactors, water recycling plants, even whole shrines and various hard-to-produce items were being transported wholesale to other worlds. Metals from decking and piping were slated for the forge-world of Graia to become weaponry for His Ever-Victorious armies. When they eventually got down to it, even the sludge that had settled over millennia on the bottom levels would be distilled for useful chemicals.

This recycling of the city would have struck Hastus Arc as a fitting parallel to the biological decomposition process if he weren't sick of it all.

Arc. The only thing he was thankful for about his surname was that it actually sounded pretty distinguished. Hastus Arc sounded like the kind of rakish, yet impeccably mannered, scion of a noble family who left swooning ladies in his wake.

As it happened, the surname was only about five generations old and owed it self to the fact that his great- great-grandfather had been a dab hand with an arc welder.

That said, the great- great-grandfather in question was the last one in the line to have actually wielded an arc welder. The Arcs, through a lot of good timing, a lot of threats and a not insignificant amount of bribery, now partially owned the reclamation rights to the northern hemisphere of Gavyan, along with a consortium of other minor trading houses.

This was a problem for Hastus because, while he was admittedly not up to his waist in toxic ooze and dodging falling masonry like his forebears, he was on the bottom rung in the world of nobility. He was seventeen; the youngest of three sons, and it would be a substantial high-risk, low-reward gamble for another house to marry a daughter to him, even if he _were _the heir to the reclamation rights, which he was not.

He pondered this situation and gazed out over the wasted city before him. Since his family had risen to their tiny bit of power after any orbital platforms had been dismantled or towed away, they instead inhabited the principia Spire, the second highest on the planet. These were better living quarters than most space stations, but still came with the perceived shame of living on the same 'ground' as the work crews who were currently tackling the more valuable parts of the hive around the central spire.

A light slap on his back jerked him out of his contemplation of a particularly ugly piece of the skyline.

"Why the long face?" queried Ednar, slapping away a half-hearted flick to his head from Hastus.

"Contemplating the strands of fate…" Hastus threw his head back and put a hand to his heart, then stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry. "Nah, but seriously, this place looks depressing."

"Uh huh, whatever" Ednar agreed, before pulling his friend away from the window and glancing up and down the corridor of the Schola. "Check it ouuuut." He whispered in a low voice as he opened one side of his long coat.

Hastus regarded the pistol hanging from a loop on Ednar's belt with a cynical expression. "Big whoop, you have a new gun."

"Not just any gun you fethwit, it's a Helpistol!"

Hastus looked blankly at his friend.

Ednar mouthed a few curses at the ceiling as he rolled his eyes. "A HEL-pistol, my ignorant shit of a friend, is the bigger, meaner, androgen-abusing, baby-killing brother of a regular laspistol."

"And you brought this doubtlessly illegal thing to schola because…?" Hastus subconsciously backed a step away from Ednar. Just in case someone walked around the corner.

"I skipped out today, I came in to come get you! Wanna take this thing down to thirty-four hundred and shoot something?" Ednar looked almost manic at the idea.

"Put it away before you get us both executed for having that thing."

Ednar did the front of his coat up, hooked his arm through Hastus' and skipped down the corridor, dragging the reluctant boy with him. "Don't be such a wimp. I know you don't have any more classes today and nobody except your depressed arse hangs out here anyway. We're all good."

About an hour later they made it to level 3400 of Principia spire. It was 75 stories below any of the inhabited levels, and a collapsed level in between meant sound didn't travel upward very much.

It was where principia's youth came to hang out and let off steam. Some enterprising group had knocked through a couple of hab walls and created a dance hall, complete with a sound system ripped from one of the upper levels.

Hastus avoided eye contact with the few people who were lounging around, smoking Emperor-knew-what out of an elaborate vase-shaped device. He had only been here a couple of times before, and felt a bit out of place amongst the rebellious and doubtlessly cool bunch who came here most of the time.

Ednar waltzed around like he owned the place, of course. His older sister had recently taken hold of the family business; the Gens Sabinius were pretty big fish in the small pond of reclamation in the sector. This afforded anyone with their second name a lot of pull. Philomena Sabinius had also, in her early twenties, been one of the people who created the hangout on thirty-four hundred, meaning the name had a lot of pull there too.

Hastus gazed at the floor as Ednar winked and pointed his fingers in a pistol shape at one of the girls smoking, earning him a rude gesture.

They left the main room and carried on down past rows of old habs, the place stank of spilt alcoholic drinks and lho sticks, with an aftertaste of rust.

Ednar bounced happily into a hab that looked particularly abandoned.

Hastus leant against the doorframe and chewed his fingernails as Ednar hefted the gun. "So normally, these things run off a powerpack in your rucksack." Ednar explained as he inserted a box into the bottom of the weapon. "I got this one from one of my sister's Cadian bodyguards in exchange for chocolate from the kitchens, apparently that shit is rare as hell where he comes from. Anyway, this one's been modified so you don't need the backpack." He pointed the gun at the oven on the far side of the room, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Ednar looked quizzically at the helpistol. "I swear I charged this thing this morning…" he smacked the magazine. "Awww come on, stupid thing."

Hastus let him verbally abuse the weapon for a few minutes before walking over and flicking a switch above the trigger guard. "You left the safety on, fethwit!"

Flicking the switch on again, Hastus wrested the gun from his friend and pushed him aside.

He levelled the large gun at the oven, flicked off the safety once more, and fired.

A flash of light and a whipcrack heralded the demise of the appliance, a ragged hole the size of a throne Gelt coin was burnt into the door; smoke coiled lazily out of the opening.

"My go!" Hastus quickly safed the gun as Ednar tried to grab it back from him.

"It isn't a toy Ednar! Throne, you'll kill yourself!"

Ednar emptied the gun into the oven as Hastus shielded his eyes from the light, even the flash suppressor couldn't hold back the full force of each shot.

Whooping, Ednar walked across the room and kicked the oven, which partially collapsed, a few rivulets of molten aluminium pooled on the floor.

"Congratulations Lord Sabinius, you have defeated the cooker of doom." Hastus called out from the other side of the kitchen.

Leaning against the oven, Ednar reholstered the gun and tilted his head regally. "Secundus is saved Ladies and Gentlemen!" He bowed. "I have like four more battery packs for it, want another go?"

Before Hastus could reply, a small beeping sounded from his left hand. The small wrist communicator informed him his father wanted to see him.

"Sorry bro, the old man calls." He gestured at the device. "See you tomorrow."

He left Ednar to immolate the rest of the kitchen, wondering what on Terra his father found important enough to actually talk to him about. Arc the Elder seldom conversed with any of his family, he practically lived in his offices at the centre of Arc family 'territory'; where they had reclamation rights.

….

"…The _Guard_. Are you serious?" Hastus was half in shock, half nauseated.

"Completely serious." Ulmann Arc sighed. This was going about as well as he'd expected.

"… But, what? Am I that useless?!" Hastus spluttered. "They'll send me off on the crusade… even if I don't die I'll be settled on some bloody outer rim world!"

"And if you stay here? Then what? What'll you do? You know if you stay in this business, as your brother's office boy when he takes charge, you'll just waste away or end up at each other's throats. We Arcs are nobody in this sector, you know how long it took to finagle a deal to get Castor married?"

"What'll I do in the damned Guard?"

"Why do you think I had the boys teach you how to shoot? You're doing well in Schola, with your grades, you'll make officer immediately if not sooner."

"If I'm not xeno-food within five minutes!" The nausea had passed, but Hastus was now sweating at his prospects.

"You think I want this? There's no other way to make sure you don't rot on this skagheap of a planet."

The elder Arc was absolutely correct of course, but Hastus' pride wasn't going to let that stop him. He pleaded, he twisted logic in all sorts of convoluted ways, he vaguely complicated offering to kill his older brothers, but knew that wouldn't fly and he couldn't do it anyway.

Eventually they both stood in silence for about five minutes before Ulmann attempted to hug Hastus, who batted his hand away and strode out of the office, barely containing the lump in his throat.

The fething _Guard._

…..

Hastus stared at the ceiling. He was in bed, but fully clothed. He needed to do something, his shock and, frankly, fear at his future prospects had boiled over into a combination of itchy feet and anger.

He swung his feet of the edge of the bed and into his boots. Absent-mindedly he keyed a message to Ed on his comm, the reply was almost instantaneous: _thirty-four hundred. If you're coming down, come prepared. _

Hastus frowned at the device. Ed was usually overexcited about everything, to get such a succinct message from him was odd. Momentarily forgetting his situation, Hastus grabbed some gloves and a small bag with the kit he and Ednar used to 'explore' abandoned areas of Principia and padded silently out of the Arc household, grabbing a leather duster that belonged to his father, feth him, maybe it'd get messy and he'd need to pay to get it cleaned.

He raced down the mostly deserted corridors to thirty-four hundred. The night cycle of the hive was in operation and the strip lighting in the cavernous tunnels had dimmed from their usual glare, rather than spooking him, Hastus found the subdued tone rather pleasant.

He heard thirty-four hundred before he reached it, deep bass penetrated up three floors and by the time he strode out into the corridor he could feel his ribs reverberating.

Passing the dance area he made for the hab he had left Ednar in earlier.

Before he even got there he could see something was afoot. Several guys in their early twenties were standing in the corridor, a few were visibly sporting weapons.

Not a party then.

As Hastus walked up he saw Ednar crouched beside a kit bag full of ropes and other equipment. He looked up as Hastus joined the little group, trying his best to look tough and nonchalant as the others sized him up.

Luckily Ednar provided him with some cred immediately, "Yo H," he spoke in a slightly deeper tone than usual.

"I got two words for you: Hive Dive."

Less than an hour later Hastus was freefalling.

Principia spire was built in a ring around a central shaft more than two miles across. The space was originally ringed by lifts and cargo hauling mechanisms to bring people and good up and down, but it had long since been disconnected from the power grid.

Tightening his grip on the rope slightly he swung inwards towards the walls, timing it perfectly, his boots kissed the parapet of level thirty-three fifty and he swung onto the mezzanine floor to join Ed and a bearded fellow by the name of Adjak.

Hive diving basically entailed abseiling as far as you dared down into the guts of the dead spire. Since the families of some of the reclamation houses lived and held offices in the very top, the lower levels hadn't yet been touched by machinery and blowtorch, laying in darkness for a few hundred years.

Hastus unclipped the belay device from the rope and gave it a hard shake to signal to the people at the other end that he was down.

An awkward silence threatened to form so Hastus turned to Adjak "So how far have you been down?"

"Uh… to about Twenty-nine hundred-ish," He replied. "We were gonna go further, but my mate lost his stones, swore he saw a mutant or something so we jumarred back up. It was pretty ganky down there and we weren't packing heat, I'm not sorry we didn't go further."

"Cool." Ednar injected himself into the conversation as he examined a scrawl of marker on the wall reading '_Augustus woz 'ere 842.M41' _

"Hastus reached out and flicked the rope, which was swaying and spinning as Bernhardt lowered himself down. "And how far down do the fixed ropes go?"

"I think about twenty-six hundred and five. That's what Regine told me anyways."

Despite the eerie surroundings, Hastus was relaxing. The darkness of the abandoned city was distracting him from the confrontation with his father. He peered over the edge, a few bits and pieces of plasteel and ferrocrete were jutting out at odd angles where levels had subsided and collapsed a few levels below. Further than that his headtorch couldn't penetrate.

Bernhardt whizzed over his head and thumped onto the ground beside Ednar. "Watch yer head kiddo." He shot good-naturedly.

A thought struck Hastus as he watched Ednar go through his duffel bag. "If there's fixed rope all the way to twenty-six whatever, how come we're bringing some? We planning to push further Ed?"

Ednar grinned back at him, "Damn right, my sister made it to thirty-hundred before turning back, I'm gonna show her who has the stones in Gens Sabinius or die trying!" He stuck his head over the wall and shouted up at the last member of the party. "Come on Roman, Some of us want to make it down sometime this week!"

Several curses and remarks about Ednar's parentage floated down from Roman to the delight of Adjak and Hastus.

The conversation flowed easily from there as they prepared the third abseil, then the fourth, and the fifth.

It was at abseil number six that everything went to sideways.


	2. Chapter 2

Hastus gently applied pressure to his descending device and level twenty-six hundred and five materialised out of the gloom. Almost no light reached this level and the tunnel through the abyss his headtorch carved only illuminated a small percentage of it.

He could have been at the bottom of the deepest sea if it weren't for the grey ferrocrete mezzanine floor his light was trained on. Dust floated lazily and as he glided toward the wall it swirled like tiny tornadoes in his wake.

His feet passed just above the wall and he let out more rope, dropping neatly to the floor. Roman had been the first down the rope, but there was no sign of him, just a glo-bulb he had attached to the wall throwing a soft light over its three meter range.

Hastus drew his knife, everyone knew that mutants lurked in the lower levels of the hive, most would have died off now that the city was no longer functioning but those that still existed would probably eat him, or he supposed so anyway.

Never taking his eyes off the nearest corridor away from the mezzanine, he was about to engage the ascending gear so he could escape when Roman sauntered around the corner, doing up his fly. "Needed a piss! What's with the knife?"

"I thought you'd been eaten by some cannibal mutants." Hastus replied, trying to make it sound like a joke as much as he could, as he began detaching himself from the rope.

Roman stuck a lho-stick between his lips, then swept back his jacket and pulled out his revolver. "I'll plug any scum that think I'm an easy meal for sure." But his eyes searched the empty spaces along the edge of the ring walkway.

The rope whipped back and forth as the next member of the little party slid down to join them, and Hastus chatted about music with Roman until Ednar's boots appeared out of the haze.

"Hey ladies." Ed chimed as he landed on the wall, where he danced momentarily, before dropping down onto the floor. "Anything fun happening?"

"Hastus thought I'd been eaten by mutants." Roman chuckled.

"Awwww, did our poor boy get scared?" Ednar tried to hug Hastus while making kissing noises.

"Fuck off, you!" Hastus sprang out of hugging range and Ednar began undoing the rope.

Before he could open the device, a peculiar hissing noise sounded from the other side of the parapet wall.

Roman's face contorted in horror. "Ed! The rope!"

Through the darkness, Hastus made out that the hissing noise was indeed their rope, writhing like a snake as it rocketed down from above. As Ednar struggled to undo the rope from the descender a shape passed their view, falling with the rope down the central shaft of the hive.

"Throne, was that Adjak?!" Roman cried.

Hastus overcame the temporary paralysis of his legs and sprang towards Ed, grabbing the rope and trying to help him get it out of the uncooperative device. He was too late, and the rope came taught with a snap, spinning Ednar around and slamming him into the wall, with Hastus' hands trapped between the wall and Ednar's navel.

"Don't just stand there! Grab the rope!" Ednar roared at Roman, who looked like he was rooted to the ground.

Coming to his senses, Roman grabbed the rope and began hauling it up over the wall, releasing Ednar and Hastus.

Ed fell heavily onto his backside, winded from his encounter with the wall and nursing a cut on his wrist.

Hastus began pulling the rope up with Roman, "Adjack?! Can you hear us?"

"Maybe the fall knocked him out." Roman grunted, "It's a long fucking way down."

"The rope was tied in right, I saw Ed do it myself, and the bolts were only in the ferrocrete for like a year, they should last a century! Especially down here cos there's no rain or wind." Hastus explained. "How the fuck did it go?"

"We can ask Adjack. If he's still alive."

"Well he's definitely still on the rope, heavy bastard." Hastus chuckled nervously and Roman's mouth twisted into a wobbly grin around his lho stick.

Stopping only to examine a large bruise appearing on Ednar's stomach, they wrestled with the rope for a full fifteen minutes before a shape appeared at the limit of their torch's power.

Adjack was suspended horizontally from his harness, his arms and legs hanging limply.

"Ah skak! Pull quicker," Roman spluttered, the lho stick dropping from his lips and tumbling down into space.

Hastus braced himself against the wall with one foot and they picked up the pace, passing the rope to Ednar, who held onto the end in case of a slip.

"Okay, I think he's snagged on the edge, hold on for a sec." Instructed Roman, Hastus and Ednar held the rope steady as Roman reached over the edge.

Roman let out a strangled cough and stumbled back from the edge. "Emperor's blood…" He whispered, making the sign of the Aquila over his chest as the colour drained from his face.

Hastus, keeping one hand on the rope, reached over the parapet, feeling for Adjack, he got hold of the harness built and using all his might, hauled a headless body over the edge.

….

Hastus hadn't realised exactly how much he had eaten before he'd left the Arc apartments, but his stomach most certainly empty now. Ednar was looking very green as well and Roman had chain-smoked several lho sticks in the ten minutes since they'd recovered what was left of Adjack.

Having voided his stomach, Hastus felt marginally better. The feeling quickly disappeared as he caught sight of the end of the rope, still attached to Adjak's harness.

He gingerly undid the descending device and held the end of the rope up to the light.

"Guys… this end didn't fail."

Roman and Ednar looked surprised at the sound of his voice, but picked themselves up from where they had been leaning against the wall to examine Hastus' discovery.

"Yeah," Roman chewed the words around his third lho stick. "Yeah man that looks way too clean, like it was cut."

Ednar finally lost the battle with his stomach, launching himself at the wall and vomiting over the edge. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he weakly stated to the emptyness "We need to get the hell out of here."

"Yup." Roman agreed. Hastus noticed Roman's hands were shaking slightly; looking down he realised his were as well. He shoved them in his pockets.

"Okay," He said, "Okay, Okay, Okay… There'll be stairs all the way up, it'll probably take tonight and a lot of next day but it'll be okay."

"Okay? Have you forgotten that there's something between us and home that did _that_ to Adjack?!" Roman hissed, "This is not gonna be fucking 'okay', you idiot."

"Calm down you fuckwit!" Ednar drew his helpistol as he spoke. "Its probably just some bloody mutant got him while his back was turned doing up the rope. We'll be fine as long as we watch out for each other. We have two guns and we know there's something out there. Plus you learned how to shoot from Kaleb didn't you Ro? Wasn't he in the guard? It'll be okay, like H said."

Roman fingered the grip on his gun, "Yeah, okay, sorry man. I didn't mean…"

"It's cool," Hastus cut across him.

…..

After the twenty-sixth flight of stairs (at least, he thought it was the twenty-sixth, he hadn't been counting) Hastus thanked the Emperor that his father made sure he and his brothers attended physical training three times a week on the threat of bread and water for dinner.

Roman had chucked his lho sticks ten levels below after Ed had pointed out that aerobic exercise and a reduced capacity for breathing didn't really go together. As it was, he was wheezing and was starting to ask for breaks after every couple of flights, while Hastus was only just starting to feel the strain on his quads.

They rounded the corner at the top of the latest set and were confronted with a twisted mass of metal and a pile of collapsed masonry. Roman sagged against the railings, seizing the opportunity to rest his legs.

"Skak." Stated Hastus.

"Where'd the nearest other stairs be?" Roman managed to gasp, looking nervously down the way they had come.

Hastus quickly peered out of the stairwell and onto what appeared to be a main avenue of some kind. Huge pillars soared out of sight, while the other visible structures his torch could illuminate looked like shop fronts of some description. If it hadn't been for the totality of the blackness above, he could have sworn they were merely outside at night.

The sweep of his headtorch created movement in the shadows and he itched for something with more stopping power than his knife.

He turned to the others. "This street looks like it's pretty major, we might find another set by just following it around."

Ednar stuck his head out of the doorway, grimacing as he surveyed the decomposing street. "It looks like half of it might fall on our heads at any second."

"Well, it eventually will if we just stay here…"

"This is true. Come on Ro, you really need to kick those lho sticks when we get back."

"IF we get back." Roman grumbled.

"Shut up." Hastus walked backwards out of the stairwell doorway. "That's handy, they have 'Stairs' written in big yellow letters! If there's another set we should be able to find them."

A faint grinding noise echoed down the street and Hastus instinctively threw himself against the wall.

"Just some old habstack giving up on life, I think." Ednar smiled as he spoke, but raised his pistol.

They scurried out of the stairwell, hugging the front of the buildings. The shops were so long dead it was impossible to tell what trade they had once plied. Any organics were now dust, any ferrous metals rust and anything remaining had been pilfered generations ago.

They moved in a hurried crouch, wincing whenever a rock skittered away from their feet. Any noise seemed ten times louder than it had any right to be and it all chewed on Hastus' nerves. Every lump of fallen ferrocrete looked like some misshapen mutant ready to pounce and the shards of broken glass from a window looked like the gleaming eyes of the xenos depicted in stained glass battling the armies of man.

He noticed Ed was gently rubbing the Aquila stamped onto the side of his gun, muttering a litany.

Hastus began to mutter along with him, saying prayers put him in mind of the chapel in schola. He actually liked that part of the curriculum, the hourly devotional before lessons made him feel ready for the rest of the day.

The high Gothic calmed him down and it seemed to be helping Ed to have someone else to pray with.

They finished and Roman expelled a breathe with a hiss, glancing around. "How far have we gone?"

From the front, Ednar shrugged. "Like two blocks? I think we've only been going for ten minutes, the next set of stairs could be miles away."

"It's going to be a long one." Grouched Roman. Who's idea was this anyway?"

"Yours, if memory serves." Ednar retorted.

"Yeah. Well, I only wanted to go down halfway! it was your idea to push it and now we're fucked and Adjack's skakkin' dead, dead! His Dad will murder us if the mutants don't..." He trailed off, sweat visibly beading up on his nose despite the cold.

"We're not dead yet," Hastus tried to sound diplomatic. "We just need to keep walking."

Roman muttered under his breath, Hastus only caught something about "inbreeding" and the Sabinii family, but Ednar heard it too and whirled around, leveling the Helpistol at Roman's nose.

"SAY THAT AGAIN!"

"Woah, lets calm down!" Hastus started to try and put his hands on Ednar's gun.

"Get lost! I want him to say that to my face!"

Roman's face was contorted in fear and anger and it looked like he wasn't going to say anything smart in the foreseeable future. The pair stared at each other like a pair of statues for several seconds.

"Nothing?" Ednar lowered the weapon and spat at Roman's feet.

"Coward."

Roman tackled Ednar around the waist, both their guns dropping to the ground. Rolling in centuries of dust, Ednar emerged on top and began punching at Roman's face until he was thrown off.

Making a grab for the front of Ednar's jacket, Roman was about to deliver blows of his own until the whipcrack of a las shot brought them back to their senses.

Hastus lowered the helpistol. "This isn't helping! We need to get the hell out of here, then you can..."

He trailed off as the most sickening sound he had ever heard rung out from behind him. It was almost so low it was beyond human hearing, yet incredibly high pitched at the same time.

He whirled around, pointing the gun in front of him with both hands as though it were a shield as much as anything else. Not ten meters away, and closing slowly, was what looked like a large, floating sea anemone. The light of the trio's headtorches illuminated sickly pale skin with greenish patches, covered by a fine web of metallic veins.

Hastus backed away, too frightened to speak as Roman and Ednar propelled themselves away from the thing on their hands.

The thing was not alone. lurking behind the creature stood a figure swathed in what looked like a single long robe, wrapped around its whole body with nothing but a black hole under the hood, not even the slightest facial feature was visible.

A terrified yelp from one of the other boys behind him knocked Hastus out of his trance.

"What in the warp do you want?!" He managed to splutter.

The figure shifted as it skulked behind the floating monstrosity and made a sound like a man with his throat cut trying to breathe, as the sound oscillated Hastus became fairly sure he, she or it? was laughing.


End file.
